The Mendelssohnian Theory: Action Adventure, Sci-Fi, Apocalyptic ,Y/A (17 page)

Visually, the arid open spaces of Mars are very similar to those
of the Earthy Sahara desert. The weather conditions, though, are closer to
those of the Russian tundra during wintertime! The frozen ground, the vast sand
rivers, the dust storms blowing at a speed of hundreds of miles an hour and
chiefly, the gas composition of the planet’s atmosphere, did not allow humans
to establish settlements on the planet, long after they’d developed the
technological ability to do so. It wasn’t a coincidence that Russian cosmonauts
were the first to land on the planet and established, in the name of the
Russian empire, the Korolev Research Station, named after the immortal rocket
engineer and spacecraft designer. The station was dug deep into the planet’s
surface, on the edges of the Valles Marineris, the notorious valley known for
its cruel nature and intolerance to strangers. Generations of mining tradition
in the demanding conditions of the Siberian region were supposedly enough to
prepare the Russian laborers for such a treacherous environment, but even they
found it difficult to adjust to the small planet.

Even in her darkest dreams, Natalia had never imagined she
would find herself in such an extreme and challenging environment. The view
visible through the Korolev Station’s control screens was hypnotizing in its
savagery. No less disturbing was the thought that there were people out there,
operating the mining equipment and freight hovercrafts in the deadly
ninety-four degrees below zero temperature. A brown iron rain fell on their
defense/offense suits (DO-Battledress ©), almost entirely preventing them from
inspecting their surroundings with their own senses and forcing them to rely on
the identification–monitoring instruments (identification-Monitoring ©)
embedded in their bodies or their DO suits. Not that anyone or anything was
about to endanger them, the living conditions on the red planet were the ones
setting traps for the station’s crew and the miners. As commander Bulganov had
said, “There are those who murder with a deep hatred, others with
uncontrollable lust blinding their eyes, Mars just murders you with
indifference.” Indeed, the planet was nicknamed ‘Indifferent Mars’, and
Natalia, who’d been in the mother base for less than two weeks, began to
understand the meaning of the name. The people around her ignored one another,
performing the task for which they were hired by the Russian Federal Space
Agency (Roscosmos) while being indifferent to each other’s presence. This was
her first assignment as a technological doctor operator (TecDoc ©) and her
first time as Natalia Kournikova. She assumed anonymity would be easier on Mars
and so had shed her previous identity. She had paid a lot of money to obtain a
new identity and had no intention of being exposed. Actually, she had
volunteered for the Mars mission, much to the surprise of the other students of
the technological doctor operators course, who regarded her as an odd bird, the
choice she had made for her first assignment merely served to establish their
opinion of her.

Bulganov, her commanding officer, the man who’d allowed her
to receive her new identity, had been hesitant about stationing her on Mars. He
thought she was still not ready to go out to the field, certainly not to Mars.
He also thought her cover story as a technological doctor operator was pretty
thin, but she was determined to go to the assignment, and the commander finally
gave up. He knew that Natalia would not finish her training unless she gained
some practical fieldwork experience, and because he regarded her as the finest
student he’d ever had, he trusted her and was convinced she will perform her
work well. She was given a name and a photo of her ‘objective’ and was supposed
to deliver the ‘article in question’, as the commander referred to him, as soon
as possible, and as alive and well as possible.

Once every two weeks or so, a different miner crew would
receive a forty-eight hour vacation within the Korolev station, today it was
the red crew’s turn to get its vacation. Natalia had already located her
target, a mining machine operator who spent most of his time on the
brownish-yellowish surface and even used to sleep in the vehicle that bore the
mining machine. The miners were already assembled inside the large air
compressor at the station’s entrance. Soon they’ll come and see her one by one,
to be examined by the technological doctor. This was her chance to act, and she
prepared to perform her assignment in the best possible way and without errors.
The commander’s customers trusted him to deliver the ‘objects’ they had ordered
alive, his men preferred to die rather than risk the delivery of a dead
shipment.

Natalia waited in the doctor’s room for the entry of the
miners, about to be examined and webwired by the technological doctor. The instrument
was ancient; a new model had long been in use, microbiological in nature and
much smaller. But it was cheaper for the mining stations and the remote areas
to supply the older instrument. The traditional role of the technological
doctor included a checkup of the functioning of bio-nanotechnological
instruments inserted into the body of each person, instruments which were in
charge of his normal functioning in locations and areas not yet treated by
human genetic engineering. The old instrument was never adjusted to the site or
to check the functionality of the extra implants, the personal add-ons, bought
for large sums from the official corporations, or cheaply on the black market,
then implanted in human bodies. A different type of scanner was required for
this task. But Natalia’s technological doctor had a more significant role to
play.

Praporshchik Yuriev was the last to be examined. When he
entered the clinic, it took Natalia exactly two seconds to identify the
problem. He was too tall to fit into the examination instrument. He smiled at
her, and she nodded, acknowledging his existence, but not committing to more
than that. She immediately instructed him to sit inside the technological
doctor, balanced his body so it would fit, as well as possible, to the cast
body of the instrument, impressed with the shape of a human body, six feet and
twenty inches tall, just a little above average. In spite of his attempts to
settle into the instrument, his bare feet protruded from it and forced Natalia
to reach a quick decision. She closed the technological doctor above the
sergeant’s head and tightened the straps as well as she could. Yuriev was
accustomed to the process and did his best to aid her, squeezing his elongated
gangling body into the instrument as much as he could. She calibrated the
instrument and activated the scanner. Yuriev fell asleep immediately, his limp
body carefully trapped within the TD.

At no time during her training, did Natalia need to solve a
problem such as the one she now encountered, but she had no choice and hoped
the technological doctor will properly function in the extreme conditions she
was about to launch him to. She stabilized it in hover and cruise mode, then
took out the small laser knife from the surgical kit attached to the
technological doctor. The kit was a remnant from days gone by in which surgical
operations were actually conducted by human doctors. She had no idea when was
the last time the knife had been operated and whether it still worked, but had
no time to check. Yuriev was probably expected at the living quarters and his
failure to arrive there might arouse suspicion. She activated the knife and
hoped for the best. A thin beam broke from it and scorched the treatment table
next to her. She hurried to adjust the beam to her purpose, held the
Praporshchik’s legs and severed that part of his feet that protruded out of the
instrument with one clean cut. The technological doctor immediately kicked into
action and sealed the stumps, stabilizing their condition and preparing for a
reconstructive operation. Someone will need new feet implants once he wakes up
on Earth, thought Natalia, if she’d only be able to get him there. Her
assignment was to deliver him alive, and she intended to bring it to a
successful fruition but wasn’t sure her commanders or those who had ordered the
goods will be pleased when they’ll receive damaged goods. Oh well, she’ll have
time enough to think of the punishment that awaited her, once she’ll be on the
small Space-Sailcraft that was supposed to wait for her at the coordinates she
typed into the technological doctor. She wore her vacuum suit, tightened her
helmet, sealed the small laboratory from the inside, and then adjusted the
knife’s beam to be stronger. She injured a hole in the transparent acrylic
glass window on the clinic’s ceiling. The air compressed through the tiny
opening and emitted a sharp whistle that must have been heard throughout the
Russian station, and Natalia knew that pretty soon, the Russian army forces
would be called to protect their property. If the whistling sound was not
enough to alarm them, the station’s computer would alert them to a drastic
change in the laboratory’s air pressure. She hoped she would have enough time
to make the necessary preparations before the sealed laboratory door will be
broken. Thin cracks lined the acrylic glass and all at once, the material
shattered and the window was broken. The laboratory’s air was quickly sucked
into the thin atmosphere outside, carrying with it all objects that were not attached
to the floor or walls, among them the technological doctor with its content and
Natalia herself, curled like a ball and protecting her head as best she could.

Once outside, Natalia landed on Martial soil, rolled and
immediately lunged to her feet. She hurried to the TD, balanced it in the air
with the aid of the instrument’s inner stabilizers and docked it to her with a
short cable. She directed the gravity stabilizers in her suit so that her
relative weight will be about a quarter of what it would be on Earth, and went
on her way. She moved in longs leaps, hovering from rock to rock, maintaining
her balance with the aid of the TD. A few seconds had passed from the blast
when two ground hovercrafts were launched into the thin skies of Mars and began
to give chase with a speed that surpassed her own. Natalia approached a
precipice and realized she was trapped. With a quick movement, she released
herself from the TD and with the same swing balanced it away from her, knowing
that the instrument will find its way to its destination much faster than her.
The TD shook in the air for a moment, then stabilized and began to accelerate,
hovering close to the surface and evading the hovercrafts that flew above.
Indeed, they left the technological doctor and turned to Natalia. Her situation
became dire. She stood on the edge of a cliff and watched the two hovercrafts
decelerating in front of her. They remained motionless in the air, surrounding
her and preventing her escape. She nodded at them and for the first time in
more than two decades prayed to the God of her forefathers. “Allah yarhamha,”
she mumbled voicelessly and jumped into the darkness of the canyon beneath her.
‘This is going to be a long fall’ she guessed in her heart and folded in an
almost perfect backward somersault. Darkness engulfed her, and all she could
think of was how the commander will be able to explain the mission’s failure.

Soldiers wearing military suits jumped out of the hovercrafts
and hurried to the canyon’s edge, taking care not to fall. They looked into the
great darkness in front of them, trying to penetrate the black wall with their
gazes and see the crushed body of the impersonating doctor who’d infiltrated
their station. They had no idea what she was doing or seeking, but one thing
was clear to them beyond doubt: she won’t be infiltrating anywhere anytime
soon. At the command of their senior officer, the soldiers turned back as one
and returned to the hovercrafts. The aircraft turned around and headed back to
the Korolev station base.

Natalia felt helpless. Darkness engulfed her, and she lost all
sense of time and space. The thin air she fell through whistled threateningly
around her. She had no idea how long she had remaining to live. Even though the
gravity stabilizers slowed down her fall, and may even be able to prevent her
crash at the bottom of the canyon, she couldn’t see anything. While she’d
prepared for the mission, she memorized the outline of Mars’ terrain, and if
her memory was not deceiving her, the area she’d plunged into was lined with
rows of cliffs, which seemed to her, while she’d examined the maps, like the
sharp threatening teeth of a shark. It was more than likely she will bump into
the rock projections or protruding cliffs, sticking out of the deep earth or
from the walls of the canyon.

Suddenly, she felt someone grasping her body and lifting her
sky-high with a force that emptied the air from her lungs. She quickly regained
her senses and forcefully tried to remove her capturer. She struggled with him
and tried to release herself from the chokehold he’d grabbed her with. He was a
man, of that Natalia was certain because she had felt him between her hands as
they struggled. He stabilized himself in the air with his feet planted on a horizontal
pole (Soar Board ©) while still holding her between his hands and she felt that
they lowered the altitude of their flight, heading toward the bottom of the
deep canyon. Each time she tried to release herself, her attacker turned on his
pole so that one time they flew with their heads turned up and another time
with their heads turned down. They stabilized in the air when Natalia decided
to save her strength for the next chance she’ll have to attack, and eventually
landed softly on the ground. Natalia assumed they had landed at the bottom of
the canyon, her eyes still blind like. The darkness at the bottom of the canyon
was even darker than the one that had engulfed her as she fell. She detached
herself from her attacker and quickly lunged back, as far as she could.

“You’d better stay close to me,” a voice was heard in her
suit’s inner communication system. She was surprised. Only the commander had
the code necessary to broadcast on this frequency, and even he didn’t have
authorization to communicate with an agent on duty. She stopped in her tracks,
trying to dwarf and minimize her presence as well as she could to make it more
difficult for him to locate her. “You can get lost here in a second,” he
continued, “and we wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?” He was speaking
Russian, but his accent indicated a British or Irish origin. Natalia knew that
any attempt to trace the origin of a person according to his accent was doomed
to failure, as immigration of Earth denizens was commonplace, mixing accents
and languages. Besides, since the translation implants (Translators©) became
readily accessible and the operation needed to insert them simple and
inexpensive, many people began to use them. Even so, Natalia felt more secure
with that tiny bit of information about her capturer. Just like her, he was
playing outside of his home turf.

A hand held hers and assisted her to rise. She clung to him,
pretending to lean on him while actually turning him over; then she circled him
and grasped him with a chokehold. It was almost too easy, and Natalia felt as
if she’d circled an inanimate object. The man did not try to resist. He waited
for her to loosen the hand that strangled him a bit and mumbled: “Had enough,
fighter girl?” Something is wrong here, Natalia thought, there wasn’t any trace
of fear in his voice, he was completely at ease, even amused.

“Get off the instrument,” she said and sought the footrest of
the flying pole the man was standing on.

“It obeys only me,” said the man, but did not refuse and got
off the small aircraft. Natalia stood on the narrow vehicle and pushed her
former capturer away from her. She remained on the pole for a brief moment,
then realized the futility of her actions – she had no idea how the instrument
worked. She sighed and said to the darkness around her, “Come.” The man’s
laughter surprised her on her right, and as she turned around toward him
quickly, she found herself in his arms. She hurried to shake herself off him
and muttered: “Get us out of here, and be quick about it.” The man obeyed her,
and they switched places.

“Hold on tight, or you’ll fall.”

“As tight as before?” she asked and held on to him, just as
she’d done when they’d fallen.

“No,” he hurried to correct himself, “not as tight as before.
I need to breathe in order to fly the pole.” She loosened her hold, and they
took off and ascended toward the sky. For a brief moment, she lost her balance
on the thin board that served as a footrest and almost slipped from it. The
small aircraft spun until the man stabilized it. She embraced him, holding onto
his body. “Don’t fight it,” he said, “flow with the pole’s equilibrium.”
Natalia obeyed him, and her hold on the pole became stable. She loosened her
body a bit, and they continued on their way up the deep dark canyon.

Natalia waited until the stranger flew the pole out of the
darkness of the canyon, then clutched his arm and signaled for him to continue
with his flight. The inbiological clock (Inbiological Watch ©) in her body
alerted her to the fact the technological doctor carrying the body of the
Russian sergeant major will soon malfunction. Unless she would launch it in
time to the hybrid space sailcraft, she will lose both the TD and her job. Even
worse, there was a not insignificant chance that following her failure she
would lose her life as well. She realized that she desperately needed the
stranger and his aircraft. Natalia perspired beneath her suit and her head
ached. With a touch to her arm, she calibrated the oxygen percentage in the air
the suit provided her and turned to the man: “I need to thank you for saving
me.” The man nodded. “So thanks, and sorry about the urgency, but I need you to
take me fourteen miles north of here to the following waypoint: longitude
twenty-five, latitude seventy-two.” She had no doubt he will locate the
coordinates. And indeed, without answering, the stranger tilted the flying pole
they were standing on in the direction she had pointed. “You’re not from around
here,” Natalia mentioned out loud.

The man laughed. “Nobody’s from around here.”

“I mean that you’re not a Russian soldier, and I don’t think
you and the Americans have anything in common.”

“And you’re saying that based on what?” asked the stranger,
amused. Natalia was embarrassed. No one had ever toyed with her like that and
made fun of her ignorance. On the other hand, she’d never spoken with rivals.
“Act first and ask questions later,” the commander had instructed her, and she
assimilated the message well. But it felt different with this strange man. She
had never met anyone like him. Tranquil, relaxed, he had remained calm even
when she’d trapped him between her arms, his body did not betray any muscular
tension. “I’m not working with the Americans at the moment,” he said and the
words ‘at the moment’ sounded emphasized to Natalia’s ears. When the man landed
the hover-pole next to the coordinated Natalia had given him, she jumped and
got off the small aircraft. She pressed the sleeve of her suit, and the space
sailcraft emerged from behind a low hill. The TD moved next to its side wall.
Natalia approached it and pressed the small spacecraft’s wall. An opening
immediately opened in front of her. She directed the TD and pushed it into the
spacecraft’s door. The opening closed, swallowing the TD behind it, and Natalia
retreated. She tapped her spacesuit’s sleeve once more, and the spaceship took
off into the thin air, stabilized itself, activated its energy filter and
quickly lunged into space. Natalia watched it until it became a tiny point in
the sky and finally disappeared from her embettered eyes (Bettereyes ©). Once
she’d finished launching the package to its destination, she turned toward to
her savior and was amazed to discover he was gone. She looked for him all
around, but it seemed as though the earth had swallowed him. She sighed and
allowed her muscles to ease a bit. Her mission was accomplished. The shipment
was on its way to those who had ordered it, minus two feet. Now she needed to
catch a ride back to Earth, and she planned to infiltrate a shipment of
quarried substances. Based on the background information she’d received from
the commander, a freight shuttle takes off every evening from the landing strip
adjacent to the American mining facilities. The Russian landing strip launched
similar freight hovercrafts, but under the circumstances, using it was out of
the question. The European shuttles were too small, and therefore it was easy
to track stowaways and prevent them from boarding their flights. The Indians
and the Chinese shuttles could present an easy option, but their launch strips
were located on a different part of the planet and were too far from her
current location. That left the American shuttle as the only reasonable option.
She calibrated the gravity regulators in her suit once more, and went on her
way, taking long leaps.